Packings made from supple film material offer numerous advantages. They are light, take up little space before and after use, are robust and inexpensive.
When they are intended to pack liquid products, such as beverages, these recipients must present a good stability in upright position, in the same way as rigid bottles or containers.
The known processes for obtaining such packings are described in particular in French Patents Nos. 1 327 875, 1 349 272 and their Certificates of Addition, in French Patent Application No. 2 192 951 and in British Patent No. 1 069 268. These processes employ the flat assembly of a system of films constituted by at least one supple sheet and comprising an inner pleat in the form of a flattened V with substantially parallel and rectilinear edges, intended to constitute, after extension, the bottom of the recipient. This pleat is intercalated between two portions of sheet with substantially parallel and rectilinear edges, preferably superposed on said edges of the inner pleat, and intended for making the lateral wall of the recipient. Assembly is effected along lateral and bottom contours, of which the outline is always the result of an arbitrary choice and does not obey any particular rule.
On the other hand, and in common with all these prior art documents, in order to ensure stability of the full recipient, in upright position, the support base is always constituted by substantially rectilinear and parallel edges of the inner pleat and/or the portions of sheet intended to constitute the lateral wall. One is thus limited to very simple forms, the lateral assemblings generally being effected along parallel straight lines substantially perpendicular to the rectilinear edges of the films intended to form the support base, and running from one edge of the films to be assembled to the other.
Furthermore, the full recipient is closed by bringing together and assembling the free edges, opposite the part forming base, of the system of films, and forming opening for filling the recipient.
However, this concept of embodiment presents a certain number of drawbacks which affect the appearance and especially the mechanical strength of the recipients, and singularly complicate the industrial processes of filling and closing the latter.
In fact, by construction, the recipients obtained by the processes of the prior art present, after having been filled and closed, folds in the lateral assemblings. Such folds are detrimental to the aesthetics of the recipient and constitute zones of weakness where the recipient tends to bend, and even to burst if it is under too much strain.
Attempts have already been made to overcome this drawback by choosing more rigid materials. However, this solution is not satisfactory, on the one hand by reason of the difficulties of assembling and of the high cost of this type of material, and, on the other hand, because the use of rigid materials is detrimental to the stability of the recipient on its base since the recipient then rests only on the lower points of its lateral assemblings.
The bags allowing such recipients to be made are obtained from at least one reel of supple film, in the form of webs, said bags being connected to one another successively in two's.
However, during the industrial filling and closing processes, these bags are separated into individual units, before being filled. The problem is then raised of locating the filling nozzle relatively to the opening of the bag, and this problem is all the more difficult to solve as the opening is small.
It is an object of the present invention to solve the new technical problem by providing a novel supple bag made by the flat assembly of a system of films, making it possible to obtain recipients intended in particular to contain liquid products and which are stable in upright position, whatever their size, whether they are open or closed and which, in the latter case, may be easily filled and closed, by bringing together and assembling the lips of the filling orifice, whether they are in isolated form or connected to other recipients of the same form or of different form, without lateral folds.